Hillary Clinton will bang the drum for internet access as a human right today when she outlines the US vision for the net in the wake of recent political turmoil in the middle east, and its own savaging in the wake of the Wikileaks disclosures.
The US Secretary of State will claim that the debate about whether the internet lends …

COMMENTS

Remember Tom Lehrer?

I remember Tom Lehrer was quoted as saying that he gave up writing his songs when they awarded the Nobel Peace Prize to Henry Kissinger for bombing Cambodia into the Stone Age and he felt that political satire could go no further.

I think La Clinton may just about trump that - has she no sense of irony? Does her dictionary not include the phrase 'crass hypocrisy'?

Re: Remember Tom Lehrer?

Another war that should never have taken place. The resumption of French colonial rule was a bitter and violent experience, so the Vietnamese approached the Americans for help, thinking they would understand a nation state who wanted independence. The Americans said no. The Vietnamese turned to the Eastern Bloc, who said yes. Murder followed. On both sides.

As a footnote, when the Chinese decided that, like Tibet, Vietnam belonged to them they invaded. The massive, highly trained, battle hardened Vietnamese army repulsed them very quickly. They were not about to submit to another ruler.

"... the Chinese decided that, VietNam belonged to them they invaded ..."

Sorry to disagree but it wasn't quite like that.

In 1979 February China invaded VietNam for 29-days in response to what China considered to be provocative actions and policies on VietNam's part including Vietnamese favouring Moscow over BeiJing; mistreatment of ethnic Chinese residents of Vietnam, "imperial dreams" when VietNam soldiers invaded Cambodia, a client state of China.

The Vietnamese military repulsed the invading Chinese who, when they withdrew, followed a scorched earth policy destroying every bridge and significant building which were replaced by the ugly Russian designed concrete monoliths that can be seen today.

The Chinese withdrawal was followed by rail cars filled with approximately 19,000 Chinese dead. China failed to force a Vietnamese withdrawal from Cambodia and failed to end border clashes.

Even today there are significant strains in the VN/CN relationship. Vehicles have to transship goods from CN trucks to VN trucks at the border and passengers have to change buses! A real pain.

All the participants in the recent wars in VietNam be they French, American or Chinese omitted one thing in their planning - the need to read VietNam's history (See: <https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/History_of_Vietnam >.

VietNam now has the respect of it's neighbours and the Western nations ... it's tragic that so many died to reach this stage. (I live in VN)

Re: "... the Chinese decided that, VietNam belonged to them they invaded ..."

Yes, indeed, though that is not the full answer either. The point is that China, being the regional power, has always had designs on local territory, has acted in such a way, and there has consequently been much strife.

How would I come to have such a strong interest? One of my brothers did much to resettle Vietnamese refugees in this country, I learned from them, from him and from books.

Returning to the point, the US cold shouldered the Vietnamese - presumably because they regarded France as both a mentor and ally in the democracy states, and the Statue of Liberty points in that direction, though they were made to pay for it! - and they approached the eastern bloc as a consequence. The main thrust of my point was that the war could have been obviated with just a little common sense. When China assumes the American position in world economic and military power stakes, well I am not very comfortable with the thought. That's where my thoughts were supposed to have led you. I am sorry if I failed in achieving that goal.

Finally, the Chinese /were/ repulsed. It's something of a military lesson sometimes taught to people like me, in their (one time) military capacities. Cannae, Trafalgar, lots of lessons to be learned, especially in Vietnam and other resource stretching wars, such as the north African desert, which posed similar problems for the British in WWII.

Re: US cold shouldered the Vietnamese

The U.S., IMO, cold shouldered the Ha Noi government because it 'lost face' when it was defeated by it's inability to fight the 'enemy'; because the Vietnamese were driven by patriotism; the South Vietnamese government was corrupt, etc. etc.

By the time the U.S. joined battle with Ha Noi the U.S. was firmly of the opinion that France was out of the game having surrendered to Germany and following WW2 trying to re-establish it's colonial presence.

The biggest failing was in the U.S. not knowing it's enemy and extreme lack of communications. The then prime minister of (North) VietNam was a fluent English linguist.

Read the 10,000 Day War by Michael McClear - it's available through Bittorrent download. < Bittorrent magnet:?xt=urn:btih:OWKU5OPFXDSTWQEZ6TLU4575FMZ4A64A >

Both China and Russia regarded VietNam as a client state and HO, Chi-Minh even tried to establish relationships with the U.S. before the American War in VietNam even got underway. Uncle HO was repulsed - Canada was the conduit through which these overtures were made.

Russia's major interest was in gaining a warm weather port in the Pacific region and this it got from the Vietnamese in the form of the Da Nang naval base which was surrendered intact when the U.S. left town.

Then President Clinton did a very smart thing in restoring relationships with VietNam as it has set the Chinese and Russian influences back a long way and the bi-directional trade has been beneficial to both sides. Pity it took so long! (I live in Cambodia!)

read all about it read all about it

FTFY

"safeguarding both liberty and security, transparency and confidentiality, and freedom of expression and tolerance... as long as it's not something we've decided is bad like communism, anarchy, nudity, stuff that blows up that wasn't bought from us, atheism, islam, copyright infraction, etc".

Also, what's that "both" doing in there? Makes the rest of the sentence after the comma nonsensical.

I'm having what she's having...

must be quite potent stuff if she can say these things with a straight face.

I'm sure US.gov loves the Internet, especially when foreign nationals use their "innovative" Internet services such as Facebook which they can subpoena anytime, or where Internet traffic goes through wiretap friendly countries like Sweden (who carries 80% of Russia's intl net traffic).

i know its real i saw her in a video

disbelief as the USA tells Iran to respect freedom of speech, when the USA has free speech zones to lock protesters into far away from where they can be heard, or they are battered half to death!

Clinton on: Protesters 'clash with police' in Iran

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6FsoCig0sbo

examples of USA police brutality:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=macarthur+park+lapd&aq=f

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=g20+pittsburgh&aq=0

never mind the fact that America has stated that they illegally kidnap & torture ppl, illegally start wars of aggression which is punishable by death under international law, but Judge USA is the Law i guess...!

Title

Wikileaks

Funnily enough, I though everything Wikileaks posted was within the law. The reason they are are trying to attack J.A. directly is because they have no laws they can use against the site. They are just hoping that with all the rhetoric and lambast saying the site carries illegal material, they can get enough public support for them to create the required laws after the fact.

I would have

gone all righteous over these statements, but unfortunately I'm an Aussie so it's pretty hard to go Old testament when you have imbeciles like Steve Conroy stalking around the political arena here in Australia

Apologetic

As an aside

The problem with Egypt is that while the cameras were facing the crowds of people in Tahir Square, you also couldn't help noticing the tanks around them, who were there on the orders of the Defence Minister, who has just stepped in as interim president.

Peel away the hope and change bullshit and it looks like a military coup.

Which then begs the question, is Twatter truely mightier than the sword?

So, what Secretary Clinton is saying

on cutting culinary comments

She not so much takes the biscuit, as scoffs the last hobnob whilst already covered in crumbs, and then goes on a rampage in the cupbaord to steal every last pack and runs away giggling whilst stuffing more biscuit based goodies into her hypocriticial lying overworked mouth.

At least Bill C just got himself blown, she's trying to f#'k us all....

Vacuous twaddle

I *would* have been shocked

There is no rule of law in the US

The can't cay that they actually have a rule of law - until the US administration who was overseeing the illegal prisons - everyone in charge and whole chain of officials from the top down to the guy cleaning the prison toliets in Guatanomo bay is charged and tried for their crimes.